Facebook brings Timeline to Business Pages, Get Prepared

Facebook not long ago brought something called the Timeline to our Facebook profiles which a vast majority of Facebook users now have. This is basically a new way of looking at the information on your profile and we are sure that you will agree when we say that it looks a lot better than the old version of the Facebook profile system. Now, many businesses have a presence on Facebook but up until now, Facebook has not brought the Timeline feature to the business pages on the site. All of this is changing today however as Facebook will be rolling out the Time for business pages feature over the next few weeks. There are a few things that you can do to prepare.

The Benefits of Facebook Timeline for Business Pages

Facebook Time as we have mentioned is a lot better looking than the previous version of Facebook and it will allow you to do a lot more with your business page too when it is rolled out. One of the great benefits that this has to business owners is that it allows them to make their brand a lot more prominent on their page. Previously, there was only really the option to add a small graphic to the page that was quite hard to make worthwhile. The new Facebook Time for Business Pages will allow you to customise the graphics a lot more on your page.

Facebook Timeline

Another advantage of the Timeline version of Facebook Pages is that your rich media will be a lot more prominent to your visitors. A lot of companies will use Facebook in order to send out rich media such as videos and photos and with Facebook Timeline, these will be a lot more featured when you view your page. This will of course have a good effect on how many people you reach and so forth.

This is certainly an exciting time for brands on Facebook as the new Timeline feature will allow you to do more than ever with the website.

When is Timeline for Business Pages being rolled out

Like most Facebook updates, the Timeline for business pages has a rollout date that has been decided by Facebook which is 30th March 2012. This gives you around a month to prepare for the changes. On this date, Facebook will change the way that all business pages look to the Timeline version so you should make sure that you are prepared. If you aren’t prepared, you will probably notice that your page looks a lot worse than before and that Timeline would actually have a negative effect on your business rather than a positive.

Despite this rollout date however, Facebook is actually giving all Page owners the option to opt in for the timeline experience right now which is a fantastic thing to do as it means you are prepared in plenty of time before the roll out and it also means that you can get used to the new features.

Opting in for Facebook Timeline for Pages

If you are looking to get Timeline started with your Facebook business page as soon as possible then there are a couple of things that you will have to do. When you visit your page when you are logged in to your admin account, Facebook will actually present you with a small box on the top of the page that asks if you want to try out the new Timeline feature. This is where you can decide to to opt in and you can have the Timeline feature enabled on your business page right away.

Facebook offers a quick look at the Timeline features too and lets you know what its all about so if you are a bit puzzled by Timeline, this is a good thing to look at.

Customising your Facebook Timeline Page

So, you’ve opted in for the Timeline experience for your business page, what do you do now. Well, the first thing that we recommend that you do is to actually customise your cover photo. This is a new feature to timeline that will actually allow you to have a cover photo to your Page; much like with the Facebook profile.

This is a really neat feature of the new Timeline feature and it is one that you can really take advantage of. The cover photo will be 852 by 315 pixels wide which gives you a lot of room to play with when it comes to design. This photo will be displayed at the top of your page so it makes sense to spend a good amount of time on this and make sure that you design something that really represents your business.

You can use this area to add information too. Perhaps you might want to include your business website URL or your phone number for maximum impact. However, you should make sure not to include too much information in this area as it will more than likely look tacky and put people off your page if you do. The truth about this area is that it is a great place for a high quality image that really represents your business. This is probably the first part of your page that your users eyes will be drawn to when they visit so you should make sure that you put something good here.

Questions about Facebook Timeline for Pages

There are a few things that you might be wondering about Facebook Timeline for pages and we are too. For example, will Facebook still allow you to have a custom tab as the first point of contact when a visitor clicks through to your page? Also, how will offers tabs and competitions work from now on. These are all big questions that are no doubt causing a lot of hassle for Facebook experts but we are sure that Facebook has a great solution.

Conclusion

Facebook Timeline for pages will definitely make your page look a lot better if optimised correctly but you will need to spend a little bit of time on it.